Yesterday we witnessed the intersection of two-year contracts and the perpetually updating Android platform. Four Android devices are stuck with their current operating system. Well, there are probably more than four, but there were four officially announced. This isn’t a huge issue for Motorola Flipout and Charm users. They still have Android 2.1, which is adequate. I’d still be a bit peeved at the lack of Froyo, and I’m not saying these customers shouldn’t get satisfaction. But owners of the i1 and the Cliq Xt have to be quite miffed. They sit in that small sliver of the Android population that runs version 1.5. And for them, there’s no way out. That’s the final operating system for these devices. That seems a bit unfair, considering the circumstances.
Read the rest of T-Mobile doing the right thing; Sprint should follow…
Verizon has offered LTE data plans since December, but they’ve yet to reveal smartphone pricing. That’s mainly because they’ve yet to carry an LTE smartphone. That’s about to change. The Thunderbolt will be available for presale on Sunday, and could be in your hands as soon as February 14. That means Verizon will reveal its LTE smartphone pricing within the next week and change — and really, they’d do best to announce it before the presale, since you don’t want to have people pre-ordering a device when they don’t know how much they’ll be paying per month. According to a rumor on Droid Life, though, it might not be as expensive as you think.
Read the rest of Will Verizon introduce 4G LTE plans at $30?…
It’s one of the biggest selling points of GSM smartphones: the ability to talk and browse the web at the same time. This works out perfectly for those who use hands-free devices. As Apple has demonstrated ad infinitum, you can call someone up and then help make your plans by browsing for restaurants and attractions. Having been on Verizon for years, and having a dislike for headsets, I’ve never really thought about the issue. But I’ve had plenty of friends who have mentioned it as a reason why they go with T-Mobile or AT&T. Now that selling point is diminishing, because Verizon is going to have simultaneous voice and data over LTE. It will start with the HTC ThunderBolt.
Read the rest of HTC ThunderBolt bringing simultaneous voice and data to Verizon…
It won’t be too long before we see an Android device running on an LTE network. Verizon just rolled out LTE to a number of markets, and while laptop cards are the only currently available devices, there figure to be a few smartphones in early 2011. Unfortunately, it appears as though HTC will not be the company to launch one. We learned earlier that they’re eyeing the second half of 2011 for LTE handsets. That leaves the job to someone else, and that someone is presumably Motorola.
Read the rest of HTC, Motorola, LTE, and 4G smartphone pricing…
The tablet market has gotten off to a blazing start. Apple has sold what appears to be around 8 million iPads since its April launch, while the Galaxy Tab has crossed the million mark in about a month’s time. It’s a tough argument, then, that the pricing on these devices are a mistake. Yet I still stand by my previous pricing critique. Maybe some people can justify a smartphone data plan along with one for a tablet, but I do wonder how deep that market runs. In other words, I wonder how sustainable this trend can be heading into 2011. How many people can afford two data plans? Thankfully, relief might be on the horizon.
Read the rest of Shared data plans would be a boon to the tablet market…
If you scroll to the bottom of this site you’ll see that AndGeeks is not our only mobile property. We cover many cellular issues from many angles. One of those is prepaid. Prepaid Reviews runs down the top prepaid providers in the country and provides information on the services they offer. One thing I’ve noticed when editing that site, which includes writing the Prepaid Reviews Blog, is that a number of prepaid carriers have started offering Android handsets. There are advantages and disadvantages to dumping the contract, and today we’ll go over some details of the more prominent carriers.
Read the rest of Android devices on American prepaid carriers…
We’re seeing carriers make plenty of efforts to get more people on smartphones. It means they have more people paying for data, which is a huge revenue generator. Really, any subscription charge is. It’s a fee charged every month, and in the cellular industry that’s basically a guaranteed payment for two years. A number of carriers, including T-Mobile and Sprint, have started offering lower-end smartphones — we discussed the Optimus One earlier in the week. Verizon’s trying a different tactic, though. They’re making it slightly cheaper to have a smartphone on a family plan.
Read the rest of Verizon offering a discount to new smartphone users on family plans…
People love buzzwords. Just look at the MLB playoffs. UPS created a song parody based on the term logistics. Android, too, has its own buzzword: fragmentation. True, it’s a bit less abstract than other buzzwords, but it is a buzzword nonetheless. A major complaint about Android, from users to developers, is that the Android population is spread among different OS builds. The number of users on the latest version, 2.2, has probably crossed the 30 percent mark by now, but that’s still 70 percent of the user base that has an older version. This is a problem for consumers just as it is a problem for developers.
Read the rest of Galaxy S Froyo updates just in time for Gingerbread…
Requiring tablet purchasers to sign a two-year data contract in order to get a reasonable deal on the device doesn’t sound like the best idea. In fact, as I said last week, it is a mistake. There might be an audience that currently uses a feature phone but would like a tablet instead of a smartphone, but I’m not sure how large that population is. What I do know is that unless carriers go with a hybrid type data plan — that you’d be able to use with both your smartphone and your tablet — they might have trouble convincing people to sign a contract. But a recent development at T-Mobile might provide a quality solution to the problem.
Read the rest of Could cheap, low-usage data plans help the Galaxy Tab?…
